“The emergence of BYOD policies and virtual desktop platforms, plus new integration and management tools, have removed the final barriers to widespread Mac adoption in the enterprise,” John S. Webster writes for Network World.

“And while Macs still cost more than PCs, IT shops are looking at the bigger ROI picture and figuring that improvements in employee productivity, reduced help desk costs and better inherent security can offset the higher sticker price,” Webster writes. “‘Over the past 15 years, Apple targeted every argument against them and made them moot,’ says Matt Heric, CEO at IAVO Scientific, an engineering software development company in Durham, N.C.”

Webster writes, “After being a 100% PC shop, IAVO employees are now all on Macs. This even includes the company’s engineers, who once thought PCs would remain the primary tool in software engineering. Analysts are predicting that 2013 will be a big year for Macs in the enterprise. In a report released in mid-2012, Gartner forecasted that the Mac would see more than 20% year-over-year growth in the business market, while the PC would see about a 5% drop.”

“…while Macs still cost more than PCs, IT shops are looking at the bigger ROI picture and figuring that improvements in employee productivity, reduced help desk costs and better inherent security can offset the higher sticker price.”

How brilliantly insightful of them!!!
DUH!!”

And let’s change that one part to, “……while Macs still cost more than cheap-crap, bargain-basement PCs”

As a business consultant that provides IT services I always find it interesting when client’s ask me why I use a MacBook Pro for projects. I tell them that I’d rather spend my time getting things done, and not having to manage my system. I tell them I have little to know IT issues with my computer, and can spend my time productively getting my work done.

Then I go back to managing their Windows based infrastructure, and they go back to using their Windows PCs (and calling me 15 minutes later when they have a problem with them). The answer is staring them right in the face, but they all miss it. If the IT guy uses a Mac, perhaps you should use a Mac. Oh well, it pays the bills.

Both. I have little to no IT problems on my Mac. But the ones I do have, I, being no IT person, have to know very little in order to take care of it myself. There is little for me to know to support my own Mac.

I work in an IT environment that is actually very welcoming of macs. We have a little bit of everything going on with windows , macs, ipads, iPhone’s and android phones.

Its funny because all the IT guys have MacBook pros and I explain the same thing to people at work – I use it because it works great!

The only area I see Microsoft holding in our business is on the backend and office. Active directory, forefront identity manager, SharePoint and office are pretty entrenched and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

What killed Apple imho was the 90s when Microsoft responded to corporate needs with NT4 which supported multiple users and had enterprise management built into the OS. That was what really hurt Apple in the places I worked.

These days a properly configured OS X machine will play with active directory damn near better than a windows machine.

Yeah, that’s the way to improve Apple’s growth in enterprise markets: directly insult the people who have influence or control of the industry.

The reality is that Apple (and by extension, those vocal company loyalists who do no critical thinking) doesn’t think there’s high enough profit margin and therefore treats businesses like second-class users.

Slow to nonexistent software and hardware updates are why several former Mac-centric companies had no choice but to adopt Windows-based infrastructure. For some companies, critical 3rd party software may never be Mac-native. Now these IT teams are being personally insulted for implementing systems that Apple doesn’t even offer at any price.

MDN: why don’t you ever ask Apple why it can’t serve the needs of such markets rather than leaping to the incorrect assumption that all IT teams are incompetent? MDN pretends not to realize that it was the hardware switch to Intel, not the last 3 years of miniscule incremental “innovation”, that enabled efficient multi-OS virtualization and hence Mac acceptance into Windows-dominant markets. The dark side of the coin is that Apple leadership no longer has the cojones to drive the Intel processor release schedule.

When’s the last time Apple announced a new Mac with the latest and greatest chipset?

When’s the last time a Mac offered cutting-edge GPU options?

Apple needs to serve the needs of “IT doofuses”, not the other way around.

“Yeah, that’s the way to improve Apple’s growth in enterprise markets: directly insult the people who have influence or control of the industry.”

Mike,

Most people don’t realize this and apparently you don’t know the history. MS and Bill Gates started the war and through the IT personnel gained control that led to MS’s near monopoly. By marginalizing Apple users deliberately, Mac users became vocal. This vocalization led to the different terms Mac users are called. The provocation was from MS from the beginning. Example: BG and company got onto the board of a powerful news media (forget the name) Software Industry back in the late ’80s. Apple went to DTP first and then to mass media (CDs) first as a whole. HOWEVER, with MS personnel on the Software Industry’s board, ALL Software CDs that came out with dual PC and Apple software/games were listed under PC/Windows sales. This was put forth to Developers as Apple software and games being almost nil. This news was published heavily. When the one sidedness was noted, the Software industry could not get MS off the board and the president decided to resign, which he did.

INSULT: Mac users have been insulted since the late ’80s. I lived in Japan and using a Mac for Japanese and English was a breeze. PC/Windows users and IT folks there were just like here in the States – Condescending! And their Windows could not do English and Japanese in the same document without problems! Didn’t matter, we were lowly mac users!

LAST QUOTE: “Apple needs to serve the needs of “IT doofuses”, not the other way around.”

I disagree. The IT industry should start out with the premis to find out what a company wants and needs and adapt. I doubt strongly that a company says: Give me xx number of new employees that will cut down the productivity of computer using employees for the sake of security and ease of the IT personnel!

Who cares who started the war? That was then, this is now. Apple will never win anything by playing playing last decades’ wars.

Today, for many people, Apple fits their needs. That number is growing strong, but still Macs are highly under-represented in businesses, and Apple has done practically NOTHING to regain lost ground in those areas where _shockingly_ an MS platform actually outperforms Apple, and where 3rd party software continues to favor MS over Mac. Hell, the chairman of Apple’s board Bill Campbell is a former Intuit CEO — you know, the company that offers a full suite of financial software for the PC and a select handful of last year’s software for the Mac?!?!?

One would expect Apple would want to outperform MS and server EVERYONE’S needs better. The Mac should be attracting developers away from MS, not the other way around.

…and MDN should support better Apple performance and competitiveness, not make excuses why Apple can’t/won’t compete in some of the biggest markets. “productivity retardation” happens in Cupertino too, you know.

So – ummm – this company — ummm… Microsomething —- that Apple soooo has to outperform and MUST compete against in the enterprise currently makes less money than just the IPHONE!!! Yehhh. Apple has SO got to get on that!

What is that $21.5 billion getting spent on?
From many years visiting many clients, I’d say that most computers in small business and corporate environments are:
– glorified typewriters
– very simple level data entry and retrieval points
– very simple appointment and invoicing terminals
– cash registers

In other words, except for their crappy OS that crashes all the time, jobs that bargain basement hardware is more than sufficient for.

So yes, I’m am saying Apple does not need to chase all this glorified typewriter business. The fact that it involves a large amount of money does not mean it’s worthwhile chasing.

For the higher level applications — well, they’re getting more and more of that relatively small amount of money without having to carry out some complex and expensive campaign.

A good read is “Focus” by Al Reis. Apple has focussed over the years and massively outstripped all the companies such as Dell and Microsoft who have tried to be all things to all people.

It is NOT time — and never will be time — for Apple to change that primary principle and become one more tech company vomiting out a flood of products to address every possible market.

To be fair, $21.5 billion is just Microsoft’s cut. Apple could regain more than just the OS portion of the pro & “prosumer” PC market if it wanted to. Apple once was a major player in these markets, you know.

If you honestly believe that computers are merely glorified typewriters & data consumption terminals, then you have undermined your entire argument. Complex mathematical simulation and computation demands are orders of magnitude more important and, yes, more profitable on a margin basis, than the lightweight consumer media devices that most people apparently think about when they use the term “computer”.

The difference is sales volume, and Apple is actually losing that battle too by letting its devices grow stale between refreshes.

You seem to think productivity Macs have no future. They would if they were given more love by Apple’s leadership. Handheld devices may drive the most profit by virtue of lower entry cost, but again, investors realize that Apple’s growth is slowing. By representing the premium quality product, the iPhone and iPad are now easily outnumbered by the multitude of cheap knockoffs in unit sales. It will take some time, but as with practically all markets, iTunes will eventually succumb to a duopoly role with 50% market share. Apple might want to consider serving profitable markets besides just consumer handheld devices.

“By representing the premium quality product, the iPhone and iPad are now easily outnumbered by the multitude of cheap knockoffs in unit sales. It will take some time, but as with practically all markets, iTunes will eventually succumb to a duopoly role with 50% market share. Apple might want to consider serving profitable markets besides just consumer handheld devices.”

You seem to be undermining your own argument — by talking about profitability and margins in the same breath as market share and unit sales.

Apple isn’t done with the iPhone line — the iPhone line is the only Apple that hasn’t been split into multiple models yet. Don’t worry, Apple has a plan to address further segments of the phone market.

And, no, the iPad is not “easily outnumbered by the multitude of cheap knockoffs. The iPad is doing very well in the “tablet” market. Probably has 90% of the profits, too.

The iPhone has some 70% of the profits of the smartphone market (might be the whole phone market, since Nokia et al are showing a loss recently).

“Smartphones”, where the iPhone sits, are some 50% at best of world mobile phone market at present. So, the market Apple plays in is growing every day. As Apple develops services and models for further segments of the potential market (basically every man, woman and child on the planet), there is a lot of headroom.

Losing a couple of points of marketshare in a growing market is no loss.

When compared with Android, there is no loss, either. Android is now default OS for all kinds of crap phones. Android is merely replacing whatever used to be default, like Symbian or whatever, on just about every phone of any description in the world. So what?

Profitable markets? Besides Apple, Samsung is the only company making any profit right now in the mobile market. And Samsung has spent some 12 Billion on marketing and placement in the last year, while Apple has spent the same on expanding it’s assembly lines for future growth.

And Apple is only on half the networks that Samsung is on, and Apple has fewer global outlets for its products.

Samsung is currently warning investors of a slowing in growth.

So, any way you cut it, Apple can only go up. And the number of cheap phones that continue to come out with a two-year old version of Android is neither here nor there.

“The reality is that Apple (and by extension, those vocal company loyalists who do no critical thinking) doesn’t think there’s high enough profit margin and therefore treats businesses like second-class users.”

False. Apple just doesn’t want to “play” in this field in the same way Windows OEMs have been forced to. It’s a rigged and losing “game”. Now the game is finally changing. HP and Dell have had to move from hardware into services just like IBM before them. MS is moving into vertical integration and direct competition with its OEMs — because it destroyed its OEMs.

Either IT depts see the value of supporting Apple products, or they don’t. They can take it or leave it. Truth is, Apple’s primary customer and focus is the end user. The one who appreciates using the machine or having to call IT every five minutes. That hasn’t stopped high-profile companies, education authorities, governments, NGOs and countries from making large Mac and iPad purchases in the last few years.

One foopah of the Draconian IT Dept era is was rigging the “game” with an excuse about having to entertain bids from three separate companies. The excuse went that you couldn’t consider Apple in the mix because that would entail some kind of single-vendor issue going on. Don’t know how many times I heard that. Hello, instead the company was stuck with MS, as the single OS and IT infrastructure provider. What a mess. Dell, HP, Acer…what’s the difference — everything is MS underneath…

And this was so wonderful because… MS is “compatible”. What a load of twaddle. People are finally getting that Apple does (and always has) played better with open standards. Still, if you went down for hours or days with security issues and lost productivity time, you could always be comforted by the fact that your competitors went down, too.

Apple needs to pursue wooing and supporting IT departments? Pfft. IT personnel have brains. They should be able to think for themselves. They have all the tools they need. Truth is, the PC era and all this MS certification has KEPT them from thinking. Now it is getting harder and harder to hide that fact that there is no real substance there! Ordinary folk are seeing through all the hand waving of this self-proclaimed esoteric priesthood and can see the man behind the curtain. And when the curtain is pulled back, this “wizard” stops projecting Bill’s leering face and starts throwing chairs and doing sweaty monkey dances.

You make some good points. However, I fail to see how serving professional computing markets would be a losing game. By not playing, Apple loses. If Apple can’t or won’t make money on the Mac Pro, or the Xserve, etc, then it isn’t trying hard enough. But since Cook & Co seem to have concentrated primarily on iOS devices at the expense of the Mac, one would not expect productivity workers to pay Apple premium profit margins for hardware that in many objective measures doesn’t have cutting edge performance.

Remember when Apple’s G5 was introduced as the first 64 bit computer for the masses, a supercomputer that the average person could buy? One would think that such breakthoughs could still happen for Macs. instead we see inability to fulfil orders on iMacs and near stagnation of mini and Mac Pro lines, as well as an unfilled gap for a mini-tower inbetween.

… and let’s not even get started on Apple’s inability to implement ZFS or seriously update its productivity applications for the past several years.